Hector

I’m from the Bronx, a Hispanic family: one brother, two parents. I’ve lived a relatively nice life, actually very nice life so far. My family, we’re Puerto Rican. My parents were born in New York City, and I was born in the Bronx, as well as my brother. We used to live in an apartment and we now live in a house in the Bronx. My mom’s a teacher and my dad works at a bank; we live a comfortable life.

It’s not about me as an individual but getting us all together.

What’s been significant for me is that I’ve been relatively lucky in my life. I’ve been very lucky actually. My brother and I, based on circumstances, were both able to get ahead, whereas some of our peers weren’t able to. So, we’ve been very lucky in our lives in having been able to reach the points we have so far, having gone to high school and college in the first place, and actually wanting to be educated, and actually having a passion to learn. It’s something we are lucky to have. I thank my parents for that. I didn’t have too much; I didn’t have too little. I was able to strive for what I want, and work for it. I know I have to work.

I went to high school and college. I’m studying right now in college, and I’m planning on being a drama major and possibly combining that with Econ or something else of interest. But right now it’s drama and Econ. Ideally I’ll be an actor but as an Econ major, I don’t know, maybe I can do something with that. Hopefully build something out of it: start a business, or at least be aware economically. At first I was going to take economics just cause, so I could know about it. So I wouldn’t be so absent minded about it. I’ve only taken microeconomics so far so I’m not 100 percent sure where my interests lie. But, if anything, if I were to do anything with economics, I would probably try to make a business of some sort. What that business is, or what it would entail, I don’t know yet, but I’m enjoying it so far.

I’m studying in Ohio now, at Kenyon College. It’s a nice little place in the middle of Ohio. Not too many people. It’s definitely not as many people as here, a lot more rural. A lot more “farmy,” a lot more cows and all that good stuff. It’s been great. I started off at public school at first. I went to the Bronx High School of Science, but I ended up discovering this boarding school. So, I ended up going to a place in Connecticut for a little while, before Ohio. And I decided that it would be best to learn in an environment that wasn’t so much the city. A place that I could enclose myself, and, by doing so, learn more about myself.

I’ve been aware of Occupy Wall Street at least since August, since I’ve been in college. I only got here right now; I’ve been in college all this time. I’m here for thanksgiving break, hanging out with my family. I saw all the hype about Occupy Wall Street and it got me very excited. I really wanted to come here. While I was in college I was saying, “I want to be there right now. I want to be with all these people,” instead of being there for a single cause. In my personal experience, and in my years of living, I feel like something like this hasn’t really happened to this scale before. Especially how Occupy Wall Street has led to other Occupies, even across the country. It excites me that we could get all these people together under one cause, under the 99%. It’s just an attractive idea. It’s a cool thing. To put it plain and simply, it’s a really cool thing. To have this many people together.

I’ve lived a comfortable life but it’s not like I lived, I don’t know… I feel like I can connect to the message. There are certain aspects to this cause that I really am a fan of. I’m not going to be too articulate about it. But, it’s a good message and it’s a good way to unite people. I’m just hoping that this whole Occupy, this whole movement, can become something bigger. It’s already big, but it could be bigger, it could make a difference. It could be something that’s going to be marked in history as making a difference in some way or another. That’s what I like about it. It’s not about me as an individual but getting us all together. We all have that same mentality, and some of us don’t know what it is, some of us can’t be articulate about it, but we know that it is something good and we know what we want. And that’s pretty amazing.

Well, I want to hope that in five years in the future I could be looking back and they could be, at least, making those strives towards difference, strives towards narrowing the gap between the 1% and the 99%. I just hope that we can narrow the gap somehow, no matter how small. No matter how small the steps, that we can at least be taking those baby steps, crawling forward towards that.